Our experience of working with successful leaders shows that they are able to connect with their people at a deeper level. Leaders should have the ability to transform the way employees think and feel, how they behave and respond to challenges, expand their team members’ potential, raise accountability and create powerful shifts in corporate perspective, performance and possibility. Where humility might once have been perceived as weakness in a leader, employees today welcome it as a sign of strong leadership. And they want their leader to be authentic. Alongside this, leader qualities such as courage and adaptability are essential within a changing business landscape that requires rapid responses to global challenges.

Coaching is very much related to how we live in the world – the coaching approach is, in essence, a way of being. In our work to help senior leaders develop the best leadership style, while we are building competencies, in the end we are working with human beings and they should not be taken as just a productive entity. Instead, we work with them to foster the understanding of what is going on inside of themselves, enabling them to become aware of their own self and the world. So that in turn, they envision what they can do for their people as a leader, and they develop the necessary leader qualities to make it possible.

• Read more about the work we do on transformational leadership and creating a coaching leadership style.

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• Performance Coach Certification
• Performance Coach Module 1
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• Transformational Leader
• Transformational Leader Module 1
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Create Your Own Winning Culture

We always knew strategy was important but how many companies proactively create their own winning culture? We can all influence and create the culture we need to perform. Follow these three simple steps to Create Your Own Winning Culture. You can do this in a company, a team or as an individual:

Step 1: The Secret

The secret is “awareness”. When we become aware of something, we have choice about it. So by simply becoming aware of what you want for your own winning culture and what the reality of your existing culture is, you will have a choice to do something about it.

We define culture as “the way things are done around here” – an unwritten system of shared approaches and of similar behaviours.

To learn more about your culture, do the following exercise:

The below graph sets out the four main types of culture. We all need different levels of support and challenge. Take a moment to think about your current working environment.

1. Choose a spot on the graph that describes what your current culture is. Jot down the characteristics of your current culture.
2. Now choose a spot on the graph that represents what you would like your culture to be that would best support your performance. Jot down how it would be different and any similarities with your current culture.

Step 2: Responsibility

To explore the different relationships we have with culture, we invite you to watch this video:

Now ask yourself what relationship you tend to have with culture – pick the ones that could describe you (you can pick as many as you like):

Are you like the frog put in boiling water who can immediately recognize if the culture isn’t a fit for you and so you jump out?
Are you like the frog in slowly heating water who allows the temperature to rise to uncomfortable levels?
Are you not like the frog in the video and able to know and ask for what you need, ie get out and turn the temperature to what you need to perform well?

Which did you choose?

A: Generally we are quite good at spotting A – it is something so alien or unsupportive of our performance that we jump out. Think of a company that you didn’t join. Or perhaps even a project that you tried to do but failed.

B: Most often, like the frog in B, we allow ourselves to become unconsciously absorbed by culture. The water might be a little too hot or cold for us to perform well, but we make do and get on with things. However, what we need to keep in mind is that, at the same time as being influenced by culture, we are also influencing culture and we can use our influence to create the culture we want.

C: This is the challenge of the 21st Century in organizations – proactively managing culture so that it empowers people. You can choose to do this yourself and create your own winning culture – once you are aware of what you need, you can ask for what you need and set the water temperature just right to perform well.

Step 3: Action

Now you know what you would like your culture to be:

1. Make a list of at least three things that will help you get from where you are now, to where you want to be.
2. Now pick one thing from your list and take steps to complete it.
3. Notice what changes and repeat until you have completed your list.

Conclusion

Creating your own winning culture marks the next step in the evolution of the relationship between companies and individuals. It’s not about top-down, hierarchical structures anymore; now it is about individual empowerment and responsibility. At Performance Consultants we focus on building the management and leadership skills to create winning cultures. Through our coaching and leadership development programmes, we provide individuals and companies with the tools, skills and insights to create cultures that not only support strategy but deliver more.

To create a winning culture in your organization, join one of our public courses:

• Public course dates

Is Sir John Whitmore one of History’s Greatest Business Pioneers?

Over the next few weeks The Financial Times is asking people to nominate their top business pioneers of all time.

We think that Sir John Whitmore’s pioneering work in bringing a coaching style of management to world-class organizations puts him in the running. His work was the foundation for the birth and explosion of the coaching industry that we have seen globally and which is now helping business to transform from the inside out. His book Coaching for Performance has sold over a million copies in 23 languages, while his coaching programmes with innovative tools and techniques are now being delivered in 40 countries around the world. He has been at the vanguard of the paradigm change in management thinking and practice from heroic to post-heroic leadership where the focus is on people finding purpose and fulfilment in their work.

The FT article notes: “Their [pioneering leaders] achievements are seldom theirs alone”; this is absolutely at the heart of the coaching style of management which Sir John Whitmore has championed. We would love you to join us in nominating Sir John Whitmore as one of the top business pioneers by emailing [email protected] or tweeting at #FTPioneers. And please let the FT know why you are nominating our pioneering leader.

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• Online
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• Performance Coach Module 1
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Google, always perceived to be at cutting edge of innovation and top of the world’s ideal-employer ranking for today’s young talent, has run Project Oxygen to research the attributes of its best managers. After extensive research, it came up with 8 Rules on How to Be a Good Boss. We are delighted to see that Be A Good Coach tops the list. It is clear that these Generation Y professionals need – and want – to learn how to lead, not just from a technical skills perspective but also from an interpersonal perspective.

“One of the biggest missing pieces in the corporate world globally is adequate grooming and development of pipeline talent for succession into the most senior roles. This keeps on coming up in research as one of the most pressing strategic issues for CEOs and companies.”

John Collingwood, Director Global Organization Development, Medtronic

Creating a Coaching Culture at Millennials Employer, Brandwatch

The good news is that Being a Good Coach can be learned. Performance Consultants International is working with the social intelligence software company, Brandwatch, based out of Brighton, UK, with offices in the US and Germany. This Silicon Alley venture is growing very rapidly and has decided to create a supportive and empowering culture to manage the productivity and wellbeing of their existing employees and new hires.

Sebastian Hempstead, EVP The Americas, a forward thinking young leader, chose us after an extensive search for the right coach training company. He wanted to add coaching skills to his management and leadership style with the aim of being a better coach to his teams. After he attended our public course Coaching for Performance, Level 1, in New York with two of his colleagues, each at a different managerial level of the organization, the company decided that this learning should be distributed throughout the organization, which employs mostly millennials. They took advantage of the Corporate Discount Card described below to send additional managers to the Level 1 public course in London and New York. The aim is for them to learn coaching skills to create a coaching culture throughout the company.

“Company culture is very important at Brandwatch. We see ourselves as an innovative, creative, and honest company. We have built an employee roster of brilliant individuals that encompasses all of that. By emphasizing coaching as a managerial strategy, we’re investing in our own team,”

Hempstead

Corporate Discount Card: Flexibility and Cost Savings on Public Courses

The Corporate Discount Card allows companies to receive a substantial group discount for training their managers and leaders without having to organize an in-house group event. Instead, by buying bulk attendance on any of our public courses, the client will not only receive a significant per-head discount but will also be able to choose which of our global public workshops each manager attends and when. This flexibility allows attendees to choose the time and place that best fits their location and schedule, and also means that employees can split up and decide whether or not to be in the same workshops as their managers or direct reports.

If you would like to know more about our Corporate Discount Card, or any of our other coach training and leadership development services, please email our Chief Operating Officer James Neville or call him on +44 (0)20 3903 0011. He will be delighted to talk to you.

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• Coaching certification
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• Coaching for Performance
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• Coaching management style
• Coaching training
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• Featured
• GROW Coaching Model
• Leadership development
• Online
• Performance Coach Certification
• Performance Coach Module 1
• Performance Coach Module 2
• Performance Coach Module 3
• Performance Coach Module 4
• Performance Coach Module 6
• Transformational Leader
• Transformational Leader Module 1
• Transformational Leader Module 2
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CIPD London: Have your cake … Eat your car!

We had lots of fun at the CIPD Learning & Development Show in London explaining why we had a fabulous bright yellow racing car cake on our stand.

In the business world, Sir John Whitmore (shown here with his ‘car-cake’ at our CIPD stand) is best known for the GROW Model, his work on leadership development and book Coaching for Performance which is now the No. 1 Best Seller on Amazon.co.uk in three categories: Management; Business team management skills; and Business coaching & mentoring skills.

In the world of sports, Sir John is a racing legend. In fact it’s not so long ago that Olympia London hosted an entirely different event at which a 1965 Ford Lotus Cortina driven by Formula 1 World Champion Jim Clark and Sir John sold at auction. And early in his racing career, Sir John achieved his dream of racing at Le Mans, competing in a Ford GT40 with Innes Ireland.

A slice of chocolate cake disguised as the bright yellow McLaren M8F Sir John drove to victory in his 1990 racing comeback is not all that people wanted from us at the CIPD show. Companies also were keen to find out how Performance Consultants could work with them on leadership development, performance improvement and organizational transformation, based on our 30 years of experience working with individuals and companies around the world.

Management coaching tip: Developing a coaching mindset

When you go to work tomorrow, try incorporating the three fundamentals of a coaching mindset:

1. Look for potential, not problems
2. Acknowledge progress and success
3. Don’t criticize or blame

Write down at the end of the day what you learned and what the impact was. Keep this up for 40 days, and you will have started to develop a new coaching management style.

Discover more

• Coaching certification
• Coaching culture
• Coaching for Performance
• Coaching for Safety
• Coaching leadership style
• Coaching management style
• Coaching training
• Employee engagement
• Featured
• GROW Coaching Model
• Leadership development
• Online
• Performance Coach Certification
• Performance Coach Module 1
• Performance Coach Module 2
• Performance Coach Module 3
• Performance Coach Module 4
• Performance Coach Module 6
• Transformational Leader
• Transformational Leader Module 1
• Transformational Leader Module 2
• Transformational Leader Module 3